Caribbean Island Of Dominica Looks To Be World’s First Climate Resilient Nation Or Something

By William Teach April 20, 2023 – 7:15 am

It’s one of the most at risk places from climate doom. Just like every other place the media pimps as at risk

A Caribbean island’s quest to become the world’s first climate-resilient nation

(Starts out with a story about a guy)

“The weather announcer said we should prepare our things and get ready to move to the shelter, which is the primary school,” he tells me as we sit in a classroom at that shelter – his home since 2017.

Frederick grabbed some clothes, papers and his artwork and headed over. There were only a few hours to spare.

The storm was first announced to residents of the small island as a tropical depression on 16 September, but within two days heightened ocean surface temperature and low wind shear led it to intensify to a category five superstorm, the strongest possible hurricane, which was named Hurricane Maria.

ZOMG, hurricanes never happen in the Caribbean! Certainly not Dominica. Definitely not all the way back to 1780, and one called the Great Hurricane Of 1780 (category 5). It’s probably your fault.

Dominica is one of the most disaster-vulnerable countries on Earth, meaning the country faces a choice between building resilience or risking becoming locked in an unsustainable cycle of destruction and rebuilding from hazards that could eventually make living there unfeasible.

Well, considering that they are prone to storms being out on the fringes of the Caribbean and Atlantic, and prone to earthquakes and volcanoes (there’s a plate boundary, a subduction zone type right there), well, they should build better, right?

After two of the country’s most costly natural disasters struck within two years of each other (2015 and 2017), Dominica’s prime minister declared the country had found itself “on the front line of the war on climate change” and announced plans to make Dominica “the world’s first climate-resilient nation“. Building resilience into every facet of society was essential to ensure the island remains habitable, he said.

Will they also be doing away with the use of fossil fuels? No longer allowing tourists to come on fossil fueled ships and planes, rent fossil fueled vehicles (25% of their GDP is tourism)? How about all the products, including foods, brought in by fossil fueled ships and planes?

Among the key measures to mainstream resilience is Dominica’s early warning system – a means to warn residents in advance about dangerous weather events, allowing them time to make what can be life-saving preparations, such as moving to higher ground. Dominica’s unique system includes a grassroots approach of support and communication using traditional conch shells.

Wouldn’t that be a good idea to start with? One would think people who live on an island all the way out were it is would keep an eye on the weather. Still your fault.

It is an urgent mission. Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Dominica’s sister island Barbados, has warned that large-scale migration from the small states of the Caribbean will be a reality in the next decades without emissions cuts and finance for robust climate and resilience projects.

Surprise: give us money.

Read: Caribbean Island Of Dominica Looks To Be World’s First Climate Resilient Nation Or Something »

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Good News: Biden Rule Will Add Money To Mortgages For Those With Good Credit

By William Teach April 20, 2023 – 7:00 am

I have to wonder, where does Biden get the statutory authority for this? Has it been expressly authorized by the duly elected Legislative Branch? Or, do Brandon’s people just pull this out of some minor legislative language that really wasn’t meant to do this, but, they’ll take the power? How does he have the power to institute a levy on a person’s private loan?

Biden rule will redistribute high-risk loan costs to homeowners with good credit

A Biden administration rule is set to take effect that will force good-credit home buyers to pay more for their mortgages to subsidize loans to higher-risk borrowers.

Experts believe that borrowers with a credit score of about 680 would pay around $40 more per month on a $400,000 mortgage under rules from the Federal Housing Finance Agency that go into effect May 1, costs that will help subsidize people with lower credit ratings also looking for a mortgage, according to a Washington Times report Tuesday.

“The changes do not make sense. Penalizing borrowers with larger down payments and credit scores will not go over well,” Ian Wright, a senior loan officer at Bay Equity Home Loans, told the Times. “It overcomplicates things for consumers during a process that can already feel overwhelming with the amount of paperwork, jargon, etc. Confusing the borrower is never a good thing.”

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees federally backed home mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has long sought to give consumers more affordable housing options. But those who work in the industry believe the new rules will only serve to frustrate and confuse people.

“This confusing approach won’t work and more importantly couldn’t come at a worse time for an industry struggling to get back on its feet after these past 12 months,” David Stevens, a former commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration during the Obama administration, wrote in a social media post responding to the new rules. “To do this at the onset of the spring market is almost offensive to the market, consumers, and lenders.”

Is it a lot of money? On the surface, no. Let’s say $20 a month for a $200K loan. That’s $7200 for a 30 year loan that you, with good credit and down payment, are paying for the whim of a Progressive a-hole who’s been rewarded quite well for his time in government (and is getting a free wall at his beach house).

Under the new rules, consumers with lower credit ratings and less money for a down payment would qualify for better mortgage rates than they otherwise would have.

It’s like rebooting a bad TV show, as we’ve seen this before, and it helped lead to a worldwide recession in 2008. Foreclosure rates were up 116% in 2022 over 2021 and 2023 is on pace to be over 100% compared to 2022. If this rule doesn’t get destroyed in the legal process, 2008 will happen again. How many years will it take to get there?

And, you’ll probably see homes rise in cost even more, with people getting loans for homes they cannot really afford. But, hey, Progressives love redistribution, regardless of outcomes. Wait till those with good credit realize they’ll be footing the bill. It reminds me of this old Obamacare article, in which we read ““Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.””

Read: Good News: Biden Rule Will Add Money To Mortgages For Those With Good Credit »

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Trans Lunatics At U Of Pittsburg Have Demands

By William Teach April 19, 2023 – 3:00 pm

There’s a very interesting part in this

University of Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ task force makes demands, including trans-inclusive health care, housing

The University of Pittsburgh’s LGTBQ task force posted several demands for the university to implement, including expanding housing and health care to transgender students.

The task force published its list of demands on Instagram alongside a call to organize a “walkout” on Tuesday.

“These centers need to not be buried deep in an org chart. LGBTQIA+ staff hired NEED to have some level of autonomy over collaboration, programming, and resource sharing. No more of this BS departmental/division gate keeping,” the task force posted on the caption.

The task force demanded that the University of Pittsburgh provide three fully staffed, in-person resource centers dedicated to the LGTQIA+, disability and BIPOC communities, expand trans-inclusive health care and housing, including additional medical leave for trans-related health care, and de-escalate crises on campus through trained mental health providers.

That’s interesting. Why do they need all this mental health help? It couldn’t be due to the trans folks having terrible mental health, could it? And that they are way more likely to have suicidal thoughts, and attempted suicides than people who are not gender confused? It’s also very interesting that these people always want special accommodations.

“No more cops for mental health crises!” they added.

Should be people in white coats who are going to take them to mental hospitals for psychiatric treatment. 5150 holds, because they are danger to themselves.

Crazy people

Read: Trans Lunatics At U Of Pittsburg Have Demands »

Posted in Barking Moonbats | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach April 19, 2023 – 1:00 pm

…are horrible fossil fuels pumps, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Irons In The Fire, with a post on insanity in Portland.

Read: If All You See… »

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Senator Menendez Trots Out Plan That Will Totally Overhaul Immigration

By William Teach April 19, 2023 – 10:30 am

I’m sure Mendendez’s plan will work to stop people from coming illegally, deincentivize them, deal with the smuggling, and, really, just stop as much illegal immigration as possible, right?

Sen. Bob Menendez unveils plan for immigration overhaul

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., on Tuesday introduced a framework for revamping immigration programs amid ongoing concerns about the number of migrant crossings, particularly along the southern border.

The outline calls for creating new pathways to citizenship, boosting humanitarian aid to specific countries, increasing funding for border security, and expanding efforts to target human traffickers. A spokesperson for Menendez said his office shared the plan with the White House, the departments of Homeland Security and State, and Senate leadership.

In a statement, Menendez noted that he has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies, which he described as implementing “short-term deterrence policies that fail to address the cycle of irregular migration at our southwest border.”

Menendez said his plan “provides a set of policies that will secure our borders without sacrificing our domestic and legal obligations to asylum seekers by working with partners in the region to give people alternative options to illegal smuggling networks. This plan largely includes policies that President Biden can pursue without Congress, until Republicans decide to come to the table and help the administration manage the current challenge.”

In other words, it will look towards amnesty, spend a lot of money, and, then, if they feel like it sometime, hire a few people to guard the border who will be stymied by Leftists both in and out of government. If you create new pathways, giving cheap and easy citizenship, that will simply entice more to come illegally and claim asylum. We’ve seen this schtick before many times, going back to Reagan, where the border security never really materialized after the mass amnesty.

And, once again, Congress would be abdicating it’s role as the lawmakers by letting the President do whatever the hell he wants (last sentence of the excerpt)

The plan also would address the busing of migrants from GOP-led states to Democratic-run cities by having the Department of Homeland Security be in charge of relocating migrants “to end the current challenge of states independently sending migrants to major urban centers without intergovernmental coordination.” Menendez’s plan would establish a new migration coordination office at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

It seems as if Democrats are pretty upset over border states shipping illegals to dark blue cities, many of whom claim to support illegal aliens and are sanctuary cities. Now they simply want to ban the practice. Which would get the legislation sued.

Poll: Voters trust GOP to handle immigration more than Dems

President Joe Biden’s immigration problem isn’t just about policy. It’s that he’s not talking about the issue enough, voters say in a new survey from a Democratic polling firm.

Fifty-eight percent of voters in seven key Electoral College battleground states disapprove of how the president is handling immigration, compared with 32 percent who approve, according to a new swing-state poll from Global Strategy Group first shared with POLITICO. And a majority of voters surveyed, at 52 percent, believe Biden is ignoring problems at the border, while 50 percent said the president is ignoring the situation around undocumented immigrants.

Biden doesn’t care. He isn’t talking much about anything

Republicans talk more about immigration than Democrats, and they are trusted more to handle the issue, according to the poll. Both parties get low marks for how they are handling immigration, but Democrats face greater criticism because voters don’t know where the party falls on the issue. Thirty-nine percent of voters trust Biden and Democrats in Congress more on the immigration issue, while 47 percent said they trust Republicans lawmakers more.

In fairness, Republicans aren’t much better, since they so often join in with Democrats for silly plan, rather than simply cracking down.

Read: Senator Menendez Trots Out Plan That Will Totally Overhaul Immigration »

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Hey, We Should Treat Reversing ‘Climate Change’ As A Global Public Good Or Something

By William Teach April 19, 2023 – 7:00 am

What’s that old saying about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions? Communist countries also talked a lot about the public good

Reversing climate change should be treated as a global public good

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who was in Washington last week for the annual Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, made a valuable and insightful observation in a side conversation with a group of India observers.

Hmm, so he took a long fossil fueled trip from India, a nation which is putting up lots and lots of coal power plants?

In reference to climate change and assorted efforts to mitigate and even reverse it, she rued that while the European Union’s carbon tariffs – the so-called border adjustment mechanism (BAM) – are a unilateral and burden-shifting effort at climate mitigation, the underlying earnest desire to act on the climate front must be recognised and given a more productive form and channel. That calls for a wider debate on global public goods that Sitharaman referred to.

There’s a lack of awareness or debate about global public goods and externalities. And there’s no agreed-upon definition of them. (snip)

A public good costs money to provide. Normally, the state provides the public good, paying for it from the proceeds of taxation. That is in the case of national public goods, where the provider and the beneficiaries are clearly definable and have a defined mutual relationship.

In the case of global public goods, things get complicated. The cost of providing global goods is borne nationally but the benefits are enjoyed globally. Naturally, governments prioritise national commitments over global public goods. The challenge when it comes to global public goods then becomes – who will provide, who will pay, and how? There are no easy answers. But another concept from economics can help us with an answer: externalities.

In other words, putting government in charge of most things. But, hey, this is all about science, not authoritarian science, right?

Read: Hey, We Should Treat Reversing ‘Climate Change’ As A Global Public Good Or Something »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Yet Another Ally, Israel, Turns To China

By William Teach April 19, 2023 – 6:45 am

Biden’s foreign policy is just working wonders, eh?

Spurned by Biden, Israel Asks China to Help Contain Iran Threat

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen asked China to “influence” Iran to cease developing its illegal nuclear weapons program, inviting Beijing to play a bigger role in the Middle East as relations with the United States under leftist President Joe Biden have deteriorated.

Cohen made the request in a conversation on Monday with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, a day before held a massive parade to mark its annual “Army Day” in which it once again threatened to destroy Israel. President Ebrahim Raisi specifically vowed “the destruction of Haifa and Tel Aviv” and debuted what appeared to be new military hardware, a drone model not yet seen in public.

Qin reportedly spoke to both Cohen and Palestinian Authority diplomat Riyad al-Maliki on Monday, apparently seeking a mediation role for China in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian terrorists. Qin’s overtures follow a shock announcement in March that the Chinese Communist Party had intervened in the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, leading talks between the rivals’ respective governments that resulted in the two sides agreeing to reopen embassies in their countries and restore commercial flights to each other. (snip)

Describing the talk with Qin on Twitter, Cohen said that he had encouraged Qin to have China participate in convincing Iran to cease developing nuclear weapons.

“I spoke today with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang. I called on him to exert his influence on Iran to stop the progress of the nuclear program,” his statement read, “which poses a danger to many countries in the Middle East and the world.”

“The State of Israel will act in any way to prevent the terrorist regime in Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons,” Cohen concluded.

Obviously, the Biden admin, just like the Obama admin, are not fans of Israel. Dare I say they are Israel haters, and even Jew haters, like so many of the Democratic party base. Regardless, this is just another nation that the Biden regime is driving away and into the arms of China with their terrible, no-good foreign policy. What little foreign policy there is. He’s just working magic all over the place. As American influence in the world under Biden fails, the PRC’s influence grows.

Read: Yet Another Ally, Israel, Turns To China »

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Climate Apocalypse Today: Judge Overturns Gas Stove Ban, Pentagon At Odds With Biden Over Offshore Wind Turbines

By William Teach April 18, 2023 – 3:00 pm

This is an amazing ruling, considering that the 9th Circuit court is the the most Progressive moonbat in the country, even with Trump adding more conservatives, though, it sure helped

Ninth Circuit Throws Out Berkeley Ban on Gas Stoves

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit tossed a Berkeley, California, ban on gas stoves on Monday, saying that the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act preempted state and local authorities in regulating natural gas.

The Courthouse News Service reported:

The three-judge panel’s ruling reverses a federal judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit by the California Restaurant Association claiming the Energy Policy and Conservation Act preempts the San Francisco Bay Area city’s ban. The group said the ordinance would affect chefs’ ability to prepare food the way they are typically trained — using natural gas stoves.

[Donald Trump appointee U.S. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay wrote:]  “States and localities can’t skirt the text of broad preemption provisions by doing indirectly what Congress says they can’t do directly. Berkeley can’t evade preemption by merely moving up one step in the energy chain and banning natural gas piping within those buildings.”

In other words, Berkeley cannot play games with the law, even to Save Us From Climate Doom. Oh, and, hey, remember how banning gas stoves was just a Republican myth?

Pentagon Sounds Alarm Over Biden Plan for Offshore Wind Sites

The Pentagon is sounding alarms over Biden administration plans to advance offshore wind projects along the central Atlantic US coast, warning that almost all of the new terrain eyed for development conflicts with military operations.

Maps shared with industry stakeholders and seen by Bloomberg News show vast red areas that the Navy and Air Force have deemed “highly problematic,” covering prime real estate the Interior Department last year earmarked for leasing off the coasts of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

The Defense Department’s concerns, which come on top of other conflicts identified by the US Coast Guard, have spooked renewable power developers and US East Coast states counting on mid-Atlantic wind farms to meet clean energy and climate goals.

The breadth of the Pentagon’s opposition could imperil President Joe Biden’s bid to install 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power — equivalent to 30 nuclear reactors — by the end of the decade, newly bolstered state goals for the development and planned manufacturing facilities in Maryland and Virginia tied to the nascent US industry.

See, the Woke Pentagon, which has gone all in on Doing Something about ‘climate change’ since Obama was president, suddenly actually has to deal with their stated Beliefs interfering with their operations, and do not like that. It’s all fun and games until someone smacks you in the mouth and you have to deal with the fallout. When you are forced to practice what you preach.

Read: Climate Apocalypse Today: Judge Overturns Gas Stove Ban, Pentagon At Odds With Biden Over Offshore Wind Turbines »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming, Joe Biden | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach April 18, 2023 – 1:00 pm

…are pine trees which will soon grow in the Arctic, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Hogewash, with a post on April 18, 1775.

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Biden Was Warned About Migrant Child Labor And Ignored It

By William Teach April 18, 2023 – 10:30 am

So, let’s see. Biden, his administration, and all sorts of Democrats basically invited people from all over the world to stream into the U.S. illegally and declare asylum, so immigration exploded. And one of the results was child labor

U.S. Was Warned of Migrant Child Labor, but ‘Didn’t Want to Hear It’

In the spring of 2021, Linda Brandmiller was working at an arena in San Antonio that had been converted into an emergency shelter for migrant children. Thousands of boys were sleeping on cots as the Biden administration grappled with a record number of minors crossing into the United States without their parents.

Brandmiller’s job was to help vet sponsors, and she had been trained to look for possible trafficking. In her first week, two cases jumped out: One man told her he was sponsoring three boys to employ them at his construction company. Another, who lived in Florida, was trying to sponsor two children who would have to work off the cost of bringing them north.

She immediately contacted supervisors working with the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency responsible for these children. “This is urgent,” she wrote in an email reviewed by The New York Times.

But within days, she noticed that one of the children was set to be released to the man in Florida. She wrote another email, this time asking for a supervisor’s “immediate attention” and adding that the government had already sent a 14-year-old boy to the same sponsor.

Brandmiller also emailed the shelter’s manager. A few days later, her building access was revoked during her lunch break. She said she was never told why she had been fired.

In fairness, Biden has no idea what’s going on. And his administration just doesn’t have the time to deal with the minutia or the fallout from policies.

Over the past two years, more than 250,000 migrant children have come alone to the United States. Thousands of children have ended up in punishing jobs across the country — working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories — all in violation of child labor laws, a recent Times investigation showed. After the article’s publication in February, the White House announced policy changes and a crackdown on companies that hire children.

But, really, not the policies which incentivize people to come to the U.S. illegally and to stop bringing the kids.

But all along, there were signs of the explosive growth of this labor force and warnings that the Biden administration ignored or missed, the Times has found.

Again and again, veteran government staffers and outside contractors told the Health and Human Services Department, including in reports that reached Secretary Xavier Becerra, that children appeared to be at risk. The Labor Department put out news releases noting an increase in child labor. Senior White House aides were shown evidence of exploitation, such as clusters of migrant children who had been found working with industrial equipment or caustic chemicals.

As the administration scrambled to clear shelters that were strained beyond capacity, children were released with little support to sponsors who expected them to take on grueling, dangerous jobs.

This is a long, long, long piece, but, at the end of the day, Biden is president. He is responsible for this. There’s lots and lots of “blameshifting” at the lower levels, but, Biden is president. He bears the responsibility, because it’s his policies causing this. There mentions of lower level people warning their bosses this was happening, and then being moved out of their positions in retaliation. Many were raising alarms. Many were ignored. Many were reassigned. Many asked for whistleblower status because of their treatment. Many left HHS. Some sued, and were paid off by the Biden admin with taxpayer funds.

But, nowhere in this NY Times piece is Biden blamed.

Read: Biden Was Warned About Migrant Child Labor And Ignored It »

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